Death Sworn

Death Sworn by Cypess, Leah




Chapter 1

The first step should have been the hardest. The cave entrance angled so sharply that one step was all it took: plunging her from light to darkness, from the fresh scent of snow to the smell of musty earth, from the touch of the breeze to the weight of dank stone. Ileni stopped for a moment, and not only to allow her eyes to adjust. Melted snow trickled down her hair and dripped on the back of her neck, and her skin was chapped by the wind, but inside the entrance to the Assassins’ Caves, the air was dry and still. She could hear the slow drip of snow melting off rocks, but with her next few steps, she would leave snow and wind—and sunlight, and falling leaves, and everything she had ever known—behind her forever.

She took the second step, ignoring the screaming desire to run back outside and keep running. She would not allow her determination to crumble now. She had spent the past few days concentrating solely on getting here and not on where she was going, keeping her focus on following the Elders’ directions through the thick forests and narrow paths. She had faced every challenge in her life with exactly that fierce determination.

But what was the point? All along, she had been driving herself toward a future that no longer existed. Her shoulders slumped, and suddenly her foot felt too heavy to lift. She was seventeen years old, and she felt as ancient as the rocks surrounding her.

And there was nowhere to go except forward, deeper into those rocks, where her death lay waiting.

On the third step, the darkness deepened. Ileni clenched her fists so hard that her fingernails dug into her palms. She had known exactly what she was getting into when she accepted the Elders’ mission; she had faced it, unflinching, the moment she said yes. She would spend her life within the Black Mountains, surrounded by assassins, with no defense when they decided to kill her. If she could agree to that, she wasn’t going to falter now just because she could feel the stones closing in around her. She forced herself forward.

A shape hurtled silently out of the shadows and slammed her against the rough stone wall.

Ileni screamed once, short and shrill, then gasped into silence. A muscled arm pressed against her chest, and something sharp and cold whispered across her throat. A knife blade.

But she was still alive. The knife was only touching her skin, not slicing into it. Ileni’s heart pounded against her chest, and she instinctively reached for her magic before remembering that she shouldn’t. Instead she brought her hands up and pushed with all her strength at the arm holding her prisoner. She might as well have tried to move the wall behind her. Her assailant didn’t so much as acknowledge the attempt.

Ileni forced her hands back to her sides and said, in her coolest voice, “The knife seems unnecessary, then, doesn’t it?”

As she said it, she called up a magelight.

The effort made her shoulders clench and her eyes sting. A few months ago, she barely would have felt a spell that small. She ignored both pains and focused on the face of her attacker, illuminated by the ball of white light hovering above.

It was a sharp, almost triangular face, with high cheekbones slicing from his chin to his coal black eyes. He looked slightly younger than she was, but something hard lurked in those eyes, something that marked him as an assassin.

“I’ll decide what’s necessary,” he said. His voice was terse, with a gravelly edge. “How did you find the entrance to our caves?”

It took great effort to act cavalier with that knife’s edge on her skin, but Ileni rolled her eyes. “How do you think? The Elders told me.”

He stepped back so abruptly that Ileni lost her balance. By the time she steadied herself, the knife had disappeared beneath his gray tunic.

Ileni drew in a deep breath, relieved to feel cool air instead of steel against her skin. Not that he couldn’t kill her with his bare hands, of course . . . and nobody knew exactly how Absalm and Cadrel had died. “I’m a Renegai sorceress,” she snapped. “Who did you think I was?”

“I didn’t—” His dark eyes narrowed. “The Renegai have never sent a woman to serve as our tutor before.”

“Is there something in our agreement that forbids it?”

Her words hung in the air like a challenge.

Melted snow crept from her neck down her back, curving lazily along her spine, and she itched to reach back and rub it away. She restrained herself from saying something just to break the silence. Finally the assassin turned and said, “Come with me.”

Ileni drew in a deep breath and hoped he hadn’t heard it. She followed him down the dark corridor, the magelight hovering at her shoulder, wondering if it made sense to feel as relieved as she did. Not getting killed within two minutes of arrival was . . . well, it was something. It was a start.